Blashphemous Joan

Doing research for my paper I came across an image of Joan in our, Joan of Arc: Her Image in France and America.  It is captioned, “’Joan as Minerva,’ frontispiece from Friedrich Schiller, Joan of Arc, or the Maid of Orleans” (Heimann and Cole 42).  Like the caption states it is Joan of Arc as Minerva the Roman goddess of wisdom, her Greek equivalent of Athena. 

I imagine, Joan would have been appalled by this image of her as a pagan goddess.  The thought of a Christian soldier being honored as a Roman goddess is quite idiotic no matter your religious affiliation.  Although Schiller was a successful writer, I cannot see how any successful writer would allow for the main character to be displayed as something that the character would have not approved of.  A writer’s purpose is to capture the moment, the mood, the authenticity of the moment, not distort it.

Schiller’s Joan does make sense from a purely analytical point of view; as Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom.  Joan of Arc was excellent at maneuvering troops and lifting sieges, the characteristics of a wise person.  And her wisdom did not come from any real schooling other than what her mother had taught her and from God’s words as well as her voices guidance. 

 

Was it appropriate for Schiller to allow Joan to be portrayed as something Joan would have probably disliked?

 

Works Cited:

Heimann, Nora and Coyle, Laura.  Joan of Arc: Her Image in France and America.  London, UK: D Giles Ltd, 2006.

The Different Viewpoints: Response to Barstow Article

     In the excerpt in the course packet written by Anne Llewellyn Barstow, she provides many examples throughout history of how Joan was an example or influenced them. It amazed me was the extremes that Joan has influenced. I understand how Joan influenced many of the feminist movements. Joan exceeded and went beyond was expected of her in the life time like the women in these movements are aspiring to. It did not surprise me. What did surprise me was some of the ends that Joan did inspire.
     One example was Isabel O'Reilly, who wrote a Roman Catholic treatise. What was interesting about this part was she had the main point of that a woman's place was in the home. She uses Joan as an example and admired many aspects of her life like her virginity and how she was able to spin. She claims that Joan can be the model for the traditional Catholic woman, despite the fact that Joan left the home. The reason Joan still qualifies was because she was commanded so by God. From my point of view, it is a long shot to claim Joan a model for Catholic women. Times change and there is a a significant time difference between Joan's lifetime and 1894 when O'Reilly wrote this. I do believe she is a great example, but naming a single model for Catholic women is impossible.
     On the other side of the extreme was the mention of the Ku Klux Klan. The women's order of the KKK wrote Joan, the Militant Kamelia. This claims that women in present day (then 1920) hear voices telling them to establish the supremacy of the white race. The claim was those voices were similar to the ones Joan heard to motivate her to liberate England from France. This surprised me because such an extremist organization associated themselves with a Saint like Joan. It seemed as if they used Joan to justify their actions and beliefs. I personally look at their actions and disagree with their train of thought in this one.
     My biggest take away was how Joan inspired many different groups. What surprised me the most was the certain groups that associated themselves with Joan and what they took away from Joan. Some of the examples made sense, but others raised a few questions for me. I enjoyed the reading in the sense that it provided an insight to me of how others reacted to Joan.

Who is Joan to women?

Anne Barstow's "She Gets Inside Your Head: Joan of Arc and Contemporary Women's Spirituality" uncovered many interesting truths about how women portray Joan of Arc as a trend-setter for women. In Anne's chapter, she asks contemporary women what Joan means to them. She shows how women have adopted Joan for women's rights movements, spiritual role models, redefining their place in the home, and showing courage.

Barstow begins by calling on the events of the Seneca Falls convention of 1848. At the convention Elizabeth Cady Stanton used Joan's mysticism to further her reformist faith. She is quoted by Barstow by saying "when all human power seemed unavailing, the French no longer despised the supernatural aid of the damsel of Domremy." She also applies Joan's strategies to reform-minded women by saying that women hear voices every day. She says these voices come from sorrow, degradation and despair. By applying Joan's actions to her own cause, she puts Joan down on their level. Her mind set was if Joan could do it so can we.

Conservative women also had their chance to apply Joan's image to their cause as well. According to conservative women, Joan was the model of the woman in the household. Barstow points out that this view is contradictory to Joan's life. Isabel O'Reilly praised Joan and explained that Joan was an exception to her dictum of a woman's place in the home. This was because Joan was commanded by God to enter public life. Barstow concluded that Joan was not a martyr in the eyes of women but a powerful visionary.

Barstow also discovers what Joan's voices mean to women as well. The survey revealed that few women mention her voices. When they did, they described the voices as a single voice from God and that Joan obeyed God despite the doubts and pressures from the outside world. This prompts some women to follow their own "inner voice" and to follow what they really believe.

I thought it was interesting that Barstow also included information about other women hearing voices just like Joan. One woman, a former Mormon explained that "Voices tell me what to write, give me no peace until I've done it and then more speak up." It is interesting that women that do hear voices of some kind try to make this connection to what they're experiencing to what Joan experienced. Other women explained that Joan showed how to be true to ones beliefs and provides an example of saying no to peer pressure.

Barstow's survey also uncovered some extreme beliefs about Joan of Arc and what their thoughts about her were. One woman rejected Joan's image and described it as "simpering, syrupy piety" and that she had an obligation towards martyrdom. Others thought that Joan's story made the Church look scary. Another even prayed to Joan at an altar and even meditating on a statue of Joan.

These cases reveal that Joan is wide open to interpretation. Women see Joan as a role model both spiritually and morally. Although interpretations vary greatly on what she was, she has proven to be a go-to source for women who need direction and are looking for answers. Barstow's survey also revealed that people choose what they want to see in Joan. Women look at Joan and focus on what they need help with. Although Joan has been looked at in every way possible, she continues to be a source for women to look up to and look for answers.

Work Cited

Barstow, Anne. "She Gets Inside Your Head: Joan Of Arc And Contemporary Women's Spirituality." In Coursepacket compiled by Dr. Woldbrink. Fall 2014.

Joan as a Raging Feminist

"I submit that every one of you is an insert in the textbook of your country. I look out over this sea of nonessential faces, and I can see the little borders around you lives, individually and collectively. You are inserts in the lives of men. You are inserts in the history of your nation. You are inserts in the roll book of your government. And when it comes down tot eh real issues, we will all be missing from the program..." (Gage 7)

Carolyn Gage's "The Second Coming of Joan of Arc" is about a very feminist version of Joan. She presents many ideas on why women are brought down by men and talks about how her identity was changed by men.

In the play, her identity is as Jeanne Romée whose role models are saints. She talks about how women's identities are wrapped up in how men see them. She talks about the roles of women as mothers and wives and how that saps what they are actually about.

All of her ideas about women can be summed up by the quote above. Women, as portrayed in this play, are only "inserts" in the lives of men.

Carolyn Gage's Jeanne is quite a bit different from the Joan that is generally known from history. This Jeanne is brash and outspoken. She hates on the church and she has an implied, if not fully out, lesbian relationship with one of her friends.

What do we stand to gain from this interpretation of Joan? Overall, Joan would have a lot of feminist ideals, and given that she dressed in men's clothing, there is also the question of gender identity. Gage's play helps us to think about these issues, although I think that Gage's Joan is a little out of character in respect to religion. Although she was condemned by the Catholic church, I don't think Joan would have actively spoken out against them.

                                                   Gage as Jeanne in a tour of the play

A Female Heroine

When reading the article “She Gets Inside Your Head: Joan Of Arc And Contemporary Women’s Spirituality” by Anne Barstow, it raised several questions about how Joan was interpreted by women from different societies. What’s interesting is that these women are using Joan’s story to influence their own movements. One particular example that I noticed Barstow used was Seneca Falls convention in 1848, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She used Joan to illustrate that women should be allowed to be active in the public realm. (Barstow 159). These women often were liberal and active in the public advocating for women’s rights using  Joan as an independent figure to influence others. Stanton used Joan's mysticism to prove her own point, she quotes," when all human power seemed unavailing, the French no longer despised the supernatural aid of the damsel of Domremy" (Barstow 159). She uses Joan's religion to help convince the audience, she states," the same religious enthusiasm that Joan of Arc to her work nerves us to ours" (Barstow 159). Although Stanton warns her audience that a women's movement would not be easy, but together they can earn the rights that they deserve as women. Similar to Joan that she never gave up on her mission even  when it cost  her, her life.

 

Above is an Joan of Arc "The Suffragette" poster used by Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in early 19th century to promote women's rights.

 

So why have we used Joan’s image in the past to promote Women’s movement? Is it effective?? Or is it simply because we view her as a female heroine as Simone de Beuavoir in The Second Sex suggest.

Works Cited
 Barstow, Anne. "She Gets Inside Your Head: Joan Of Arc And Contemporary Women’s Spirituality." In Coursepacket compiled by Dr. Wolbrink. Fall 2014.

Joan and the 21st Century

From Carolyn Gage's portrayal of Joan, I was curious about when her play was written to get a better understanding of why Gage wrote it. It was written in 2005, a more acceptable time for both feminism and homosexual rights. Although the play exaggerated aspects of Joan's life, the play itself is a very inspiring piece to read.

Anti-Feminist group propaganda

Joan (or "Jeanne" as Gage referred her as) came off as an extreme feminist but with some really good points. The narration was targeted to the female audience in order to encourage them to keep fighting. In the prologue, Gage made it clear who her target audience was by stating "You are inserts in he lives of men. You are inserts in the history of you nation" and "My story is the story of all women, and my suffering is identical to ours. My trial is the trial of all women. My misguided crusade is all of our misguided crusades... The voices I hear are your voices" (Gage, 7). Both lines were very strong. Gage's extreme feminist Jeanne directing her narration to the audience in such a way implied that the same struggles that Joan had faced based on her sexuality is still an issue about six hundred years later.

A common theme in the play was the female dependence on a man and over-all inferiority. Jeanne analyzed the saints that spoke to her and had drawn a conclusion: "the only happy ending was the man's" and "a conquering male gets a whole different reception than a conquering female" (Gage, 11). From Jeanne's narration, she had come from a male-dominated and abusive home. Between her relationship with her father and her connection with her best friend who she took first communion with, it wouldn't be a far-off idea for a 21st century interpretation of Joan is that she was a lesbian.

Gage's Jeanne not only had the issue of being a woman in a man's world. She had also been in love with the same sex. Gage built on an interesting idea about Joan being a lesbian because of her sleeping with women instead of men. Jeanne had admitted that she loved the body of a young girl. Although she was talking about her own body, it seemed to foreshadow Gage's interpretation of Joan at the end of the play. Jeanne rejected her God but was still spiritual, stating "the closest I had ever come to an real sense of spirituality was alone with my voices, or in the company of other women" (Gage, 32). Whether or not Joan really was a lesbian, it would be hard to argue that she didn't face a lot of challenges and threats being a woman in a man's world.

Gage emphasized the aspects of Joan's life that would fit to modern-day causes such as women's rights and same-sex rights. Jeanne advised the female audience "We must clothe ourselves in self-respect, arm ourselves with our finely-tempered rage, and obey only those voices that we women alone can hear" (Gage, 32). Although women's rights are not an obvious issue in the media today, Gage's point was that it is still an issue and it won't end. You just have to fight it when it gets in your way. Homosexuality is a more obvious issue in the media. The main advice for that cause was to accept who you are and who you love: "there was a Jeanne Romee who made the terrible, terrible mistake of trying to find a substitute in the world of men for the love she had experienced in the arms of a woman" (Gage, 34). From the sources read in the class, I doubt Joan was really a lesbian or as much of a man-hater as Gage portrayed but for the causes she wanted to address, emphasizing Joan's life and using her as an example would have been clever.

Photo Credit
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Joan was a Hard Core Feminist

In Carolyn Gage’s play “The Second Coming of Joan of Arc”, she presents an image of Joan that we have not even come close to seeing in our studies of her this semester. In Gage’s play, Joan is self-assured, hostile, sarcastic, judgmental, and bitter. But the best part about Gage’s Joan is that she completely unapologetic about who she is. She created her voices because she wanted something more than she was being offered, and then proceeded to believe entirely in those voices that she had created, which to some extent is saying that she believed in herself. She decided to wear men’s clothing in order to get men to really see her and not just her sex. She rode off to save France because she wanted to be a hero, and to be known for something other than her husband and her children. She took her life into her own hands and did something to shape her future how she wanted to, rather than listen to want other people said she should do.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding Gage’s depiction of Joan. The real Joan probably didn’t hate men, or the church the way Gage’s Joan did. In fact, Joan’s life was based around a love of God and a respect for the clergy of the church. There are so many sources that tell us how she was an extremely devout person up to the day she died. Calling God a lie, and calling the clergy self-interested is not something that I can easily image Joan doing, like she did in Gage’s play. So maybe it is an insult to Joan’s memory to portray her in this manner. Much of what Gage’s Joan stands for is against what the real Joan stood for, so we cannot rely on this play to provide historical accuracy. 

However, what this play does really well is expose the reality of what Joan suffered through. We know from the sources that Joan constantly complained about being guarded by men and not women, but I never considered why Joan would have been so uncomfortable. I always assumed that she considered it to be improper, and since Joan was a very religious person, I thought this was the reason that she would have wanted female guards. This play made me realize that Joan probably felt unsafe and exposed every day. Gage remarks that “rape, of course, is not the issue. The fear of rape, as men have known for years, is just as effective as the real thing. The woman is scared to live alone, scared to go places by herself, sacred of the dark…she is perpetually distracted, self-conscious, subverted, terrorized” (CP 151). Just the fact that the men guarding her were there, with plenty of opportunity to take advantage of the situation, would have been enough to terrorize Joan. Gage’s commentary on Joan’s struggle to gain the respect of the men around her was also very accurate. Gage takes many of these issues to an extreme and depicts Joan in such an intense light, that she probably alienates many of her readers. However, she still manages provide insight and commentary on many issues that Joan faced and that other women today are still facing. 

Did you think that Gage's play used Joan's story to expose important social issues, or was it too extreme to be effective?